HEARTLESS FRAUDS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 26

HEARTLESS FRAUDS

WORKLESS MEN ROBBED

Derek Lazenby, 41, of Nottingham, was at London Sessions, found guilty of obtaining money by means of employment frauds, and fraudulently converting £865 to his own use, says the "Daily Telegraph."

It was stated that Lazenby opened 10 ' tobacconists'. and confectioners' shops in South London and appointed managers who .were required to pay £75 as a guarantee of honesty. The men did not get their money back, arid in one case four managers were appointed in one shop. Lazenby asked for fifty-four other cases of obtaining money and credit by fraud to be taken into consideration. : ■

Detective-Sergeant Albert Wells said that Lazenby had two previous convictions. In 1928 he was sentenced at the Old-Bailey to fifteen months in the second division for obtaining money by false pretences and fraudulent conversion.

He was an agent for various manufacturing firms, and he advertised for convassers and said he wanted £20 or £25 as deposit for their security on samples they were to carry. Seven other cases were .taken into consideration when he was sentenced, and the approximate total involved was £700. The judge then told Lazenby that he would have ,been sent to penal servitude if he had had a previous conviction. Fourteen months after being released from that sentence he was sentenced to twelve months' hard labour at Bow Street for obtaining money by false pretences.

Before 1926 he had an exceptionally good character. He was a man of persuasive and plausible abilities. All the additional fifty-four charges arose out of the same matter.

* "I have made these inquiries throughput," said Sergeant Wells, • "and- it is only. by this means that one sees the true plight of the victims.

"Some of the men have lost every penny they had, and not only that, but when no wages were coming in and they went to' the Labour Exchange, they found they were not entitled to benefit owing to the stamps not having been jpn their cards. Others who moved into rooms over the shops were more or less turned into the streets."

Sir Percival Clarke, the chairman, in sentencing Lazenby to five years' penal servitude, said, "You have been guilty of a most cruel and heartless fraud. You traded on these poor men until you brought ruin and havoc among them. You have had your warning when you practised similar frauds and that did not convert you."

Sir Peircival commended DetectiveSergeant Wells, who, it was stated, had worked entirely alone and had taken over 300 statements.